Court decision convicting SDF of spying on the public is finalized

February 18, 2016

In the lawsuit over the Self-Defense Forces’ activities monitoring the general public, the government on February 17 gave up appealing against the recent high court decision which ruled the SDF activities to be unconstitutional. This ruling was given to one of the 76 plaintiffs in the suit. Thus, this court decision was finalized.

The plaintiff joined a civic movement opposing the dispatch of SDF troops to Iraq in the early 2000s. On February 2, the Sendai High Court ruled that the SDF intelligence security unit violated the plaintiff’s constitutional right to privacy by collecting his personal information in secrecy, and ordered the government to pay him 100,000 yen in compensation.

On February 17, the plaintiff group held a news conference in Sendai City and published a statement regarding the victory. The statement notes that the abandonment of appealing the decision means that the SDF admitted to its illegal acts, adding that this is a significant result for safeguarding fundamental human rights.

Meanwhile, the other plaintiffs on February 15 appealed against the high court ruling which dismissed their demands for damages and an injunction against surveillance activities.

Knowledge of the SDF’s monitoring operations came out in 2007 when the Japanese Communist Party obtained internal documents of the intelligence unit.